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Brooklyn Navy Yard Development

Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged to invest $71 million toward infrastructure improvements; the plan calls for 500 to 800 new jobs over the next 5 years.

The city unveiled a strategic plan aimed at creating as much as 500,000 square feet of additional industrial space at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and says it will invest $71 million in infrastructure improvements at the industrial park.

The scheme, which the city says will generate up to 800 jobs at the Navy Yard within the next five years, includes the creation of new industrial facilities and new retail space on 20 acres of land in the western portion of the Navy Yard. Construction on a more than 100,000-square-foot food manufacturing complex is slated to begin in 2006.

To help staff film productions at Steiner Studios and other film-related companies at the Navy Yard, a workforce consultant is slated to establish a recruitment outpost at the Navy Yard in the next few weeks, the city said.

In the last six months, said the city, 38 industrial firms representing 380 employees have agreed to locate, expand or renew their leases at the Navy Yard.

Calling it one of the city's great economic success stories, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a five-year plan yesterday to expand the industrial park at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to attract hundreds of new jobs.

Mayor Bloomberg said the city would spend $71 million on infrastructure improvements at the Navy Yard, laying the groundwork for private development of 560,000 square feet of manufacturing, industrial and retail space along the west side. That development is expected to cost $60 million, to be raised from investors.

Already under construction is Steiner Studios, a $118 million film and television complex. The mayor said he expected to cut the ribbon in a few months on one of the largest sound stages on the East Coast.

The Navy Yard also houses about 3.5 million square feet of industrial space, which is nearly all occupied by more than 220 industrial and manufacturing businesses, including a billboard and graphics company, a seafood distributor and several specialty furniture makers. "In fact, the Navy Yard is bursting at the seams," he said.

Under the plan, construction would begin next year on a 180,000-square-foot industrial building on what is now part of a Police Department tow pound. A 100,000-square-foot food-processing complex with freezer and refrigeration storage would break ground in 2006. The rest of the industrial and manufacturing space would be built in subsequent years.

In addition, work would begin next year on 60,000 square feet of commercial retail space along Flushing Avenue, which would be used for neighborhood-oriented stores.

City officials said the expansion plan would bring an additional 500 to 800 new jobs to the Navy Yard, which currently has about 4,000 employees, and improve the quality of life for residents in nearby communities.

Mayor Bloomberg said that the city would hire a consultant to coordinate efforts to help local residents secure jobs at the yard. The city's $71 million will be used for capital improvements: paving streets, upgrading electrical systems and installing water and sewer lines.

"We are confident that these public investments will be repaid many times over in private investments and jobs for residents of all five boroughs," the mayor said.

The Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, who appeared with the mayor at a news conference yesterday at the Navy Yard, was one of several Brooklyn officials who praised the expansion plan. "Brooklyn's ship has come in, for sure," he said. "This represents Brooklyn yesterday, it represents the best of Brooklyn today and the opportunity and hope and expectation of Brooklyn tomorrow."

SPACE GALORE With more than 3.5 million square feet of space in a property of 300 acres, the Brooklyn Navy Yard has a long list of potential tenants.

RIC DEUTSCH, president and chief executive of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, said his children, Adam, 8, and Emily, 6, who beg to visit his workplace, call the Navy Yard "gigungus," probably as dead-on accurate as one descriptive could be. Now a virtual theme park of 21st-century commerce housed in 19th- and 20th-century shipyard buildings, the Navy Yard is experiencing the same real estate demand taking place in most of the rest of the city.

The complex on the East River, today the largest commercial leasing space in the city, covering 300 acres, has been in continuous operation since 1801, when the federal government bought it for $40,000 from a local landowner and commissioned it the New York Naval Shipyard. It may also be one of the city's most beautiful industrial spots, a mishmash of old warehouses filled with natural light, offering unobstructed views of the Manhattan skyline directly across the East River.

During the 19th century, it was the builder of Navy vessels that fended off Barbary pirates and fought in the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. During World War II, it was the largest naval construction facility in the United States.

But in 1966, when increasingly large ships were blocked by the Brooklyn Bridge, the Navy moved its shipbuilding to warmer climes. The Navy Yard was sold to the City of New York for $22 million, and the historic shipyard gradually became a desolate site, emblematic of the city's economic decline.

Today, this seems a very distant memory. The Navy Yard has become a virtual boomtown, a walled mall of 3.5 million square feet of commercial space. Its 40 warehouses and old shipyard buildings are almost fully leased by 230 industrial and manufacturing enterprises, from food and book distributors to small manufacturing companies, and a substantial number of artists and craftsmen.

The leasing program, in effect since the late 1960's, has expanded significantly in the last two years, since the Navy Yard became part of the city's capital budget, gaining $71 million for infrastructure improvements. Because the Navy Yard is nonprofit, tenants pay rents that do not include real estate taxes.

Annual rents are $6 to $16 a square foot, depending on the space (smaller spaces pay the higher rates). With ample parking for trucks and cars, the Navy Yard has none of the loading and unloading hassles of many other New York City locations. It is strategically located between the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, with easy access to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and two major airports.

Parking doesn't appear to be a problem. Loading and unloading are a comparative breeze compared with Lower Manhattan, where many sculptors and architectural fabricators have traditionally had their workshops. The huge freight elevators in the old commercial buildings once used for shipbuilding are still commodious heavy load lifters.

The central location makes the appeal of the yard obvious for warehouses and distribution centers. For artists and craftsmen, the quick access to Manhattan is ideal.

And then there are the space, light and views. The vast windowed warehouse spaces, the most precious commodity for many artists and sculptors, are suffused with clear light from the East River. The unobstructed views of Lower Manhattan seem to belong to another era.

Midway between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge, the Navy Yard takes up all of Wallabout Bay, with a clear view across the East River to Corlears Hook, a projecting point of land on the Lower East Side.

For Robert Ferraroni, co-owner with Jeff Kahn of Ferra Designs Inc., a metal fabrication company, parking in Manhattan when he delivers his work is still a problem. He has, however, eliminated the parking tickets he amassed in Williamsburg, where his shop was located until three years ago. At the Navy Yard, the huge cranes once used by shipbuilders and still in place have proved invaluable for hoisting a recent project, a glass and stainless steel catwalk that will span open space in a Manhattan town house.

Owned by the city and managed by the not-for-profit Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, the yard has annual rent revenues that are approaching $18 million, according to Thomas Maiorano, vice president of the corporation and the leasing manager. "I've got stick-it notes all over my computer right now from people looking for space," he said.

The largest space, one million square feet, is now leased by S&F Warehousing, a commodities warehouse, although smaller spaces, from 1,200 to 1,800 square feet, are particularly sought after.

Susan Woods, an artist who owns Susan Woods Studios, moved to the Navy Yard from nearby Dumbo in 1998, when the rents went up. "I couldn't afford to live there anymore, much less work there," she said.

Her only quibble with the Navy Yard is not being allowed to have an on-site retail studio. It is not open to the public, and there are five 24-hour security gates.

That security, though, is part of the yard's appeal to its commercial tenants. "Sometimes I work here late at night, and I feel absolutely safe, even when I'm working by myself," Ms. Woods said.

For Scott Jordan, the owner of Scott Jordan furniture, the Navy Yard, where he has been a tenant since 1988, is a complete package of amenities. His 15,000 square feet of warehouse, inventory and workshop space, filled with computers, woodworking tools and high-tech machinery, is secure. He bikes to work from his home in Brooklyn Heights and except in truly inclement weather, across the Brooklyn Bridge to his retail shop on Varick Street. And his large open workshop, flooded with natural light, is like a woodworking shop of 100 years ago. Although each of his seven furniture makers is responsible for a different aspect of each piece of hand-assembled furniture, "we can all see what the other is doing - it's a complete flow operation."

Both gorgeous and gritty, the Navy Yard is an irresistible photographic journey; Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon and Annie Leibovitz have all shot there. Episodes of "Law and Order," "Criminal Intent" and "CSI New York" have been filmed here.

And almost completed on 15 leased acres of Navy Yard land, the newly built Steiner Studios, a $118 million film and television studio complex, the largest on the East Coast, already has one production under way: "The Producers," starring the Brooklyn-born Mel Brooks, is being filmed now in and around a custom-designed set, including a five-story replica of 42nd Street.

For Douglas C. Steiner and his father, David S. Steiner, partners in Steiner Equities Group, the 280,000-square-foot studio is a first. It was designed after a year of consultation with West Coast filmmakers and producers. The resulting studio is a state-of-the-art space, including sound stages with a towering 45-foot grid height.

Created for start-to-finish production of major movies, television shows, videos and commercials, Steiner Studios is a movie lot within a space that could be a movie lot.

With the East River on one side, the entire complex is surrounded on its land side by a serpentine stretch of high walls and fences, enclosing it completely, much like a medieval walled city. Even to many longtime New Yorkers, the Navy Yard remains an enigma, open to romantic interpretation, although the yard's new incarnation has had a decided impact on its surrounding neighborhoods, where real estate, both old and newly developed, is getting more expensive by the week.

Vinegar Hill, to the west of the Navy Yard, is experiencing increased condo development, as is Williamsburg to the north.

Along Flushing Avenue, which runs parallel to the Navy Yard and where condominium developments are already rising, construction is to begin on 60,000 square feet of commercial space, with much of it planned for neighborhood-oriented stores.

Members of the present Navy Yard community must hope fervently that some of those stores will be food-related. As of now, the 7,000 workers in the Navy Yard either brown-bag it or order takeout from Myrtle Avenue, a good 15-minute walk away. "We tried having a food service facility here, but the menu planning got complicated, trying to accommodate all the ethnic groups who work here," Mr. Deutsch said hurriedly one afternoon recently as he jumped into his van, heading up to Brooklyn Heights, a couple of miles away, for a pizza.

When Daniella Romano was hired right out of Pratt Institute to be the archivist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard a year ago, she had no idea just what she was getting into.

What she got into were 33,000 documents and architectural drawings, most of them rolled up, disorganized and brittle, along with ship plans and other artifacts that comprised its "archives."

"They had two rooms here that contained roughly 2,200 cubic feet of rolled-up plans that had been left behind by the Navy," she said.

Blueprints and other documents were crammed into a heating-ventilation space and storage closet in a building erected in 1942 as a mess hall.

"Some of them were ruined by being exposed to water," she said. Some were so fragile, in fact, that Romano was afraid to unroll them and left them to be treated by a professional conservator in the future.

Valuable information

Executives of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., the quasi-public entity that manages what is now a city-owned industrial park, certainly have an interest in history. But Elliot Matz, the chief operating officer, hired Romano more for practical reasons.

"Elliot recognized that with all the development that's going on in the yard there would be a lot of information here that would be valuable," Romano said in her office with tables full of folders containing blueprints. "There are no records, so we can dig in an area and not know what's underground. Now we're finding out."

The Navy Yard, closed by the U.S. Navy in 1966 and sold to the city the following year, is home to more than 220 private-sector tenants, with an estimated 4,100 jobs. Its buildings are 97 percent occupied.

Seeking restoration grants

The corporation is seeking grants to restore the documents and is considering turning one of the historic buildings into a visitor center to explain the yard's history and exhibit some of the documents.

Among the more interesting items is a drawing on waxed linen of the U.S.S. Maine in 1890, just before it was launched. The battleship blew up in Havana Harbor, helping to precipitate the Spanish-American War in 1898. The drawing is about eight feet by three feet and shows how to construct a steel-armored belt around the hull for added protection from enemy shells.

"We've got a good number of plans from World War I," Romano said. One dated 1914 shows how to construct platforms for funeral services. "It wasn't very busy here during the '20s, so we don't have much from that era. In the late '30s through World War II, the number of plans explodes."

1858 plans found

The oldest document unearthed so far dates to 1858. It is a design by a local artisan for a monument that was erected at the yard to honor sailors and Marines who died during the Battle for the Barrier Forts in Canton in 1856, during the Opium Wars in China.

The plan for the monument, along with the plan for the U.S.S. Maine, have been sent to the Municipal Archives in Manhattan for restoration.

"We have just under 33,000 drawings," Romano said. "I don't think it's even 10 percent of the drawings that were created here." The rest are kept by the National Archives at a site in lower Manhattan.

"Every time they replaced a lightbulb, they had a drawing to show them how to do it," quipped David Lowin, the corporation's vice president for planning and development. "Now that we have them somewhat organized, whenever we have a capital project, one of the first things we do is to come to Daniella and say, 'Do you have drawings of this building that we want to work on?'"

So far, Romano explained, "I've gone through and unrolled all the rolls that I can; some are too fragile, and I'll have to wait for conservators."

She has separated the documents by material and subject so blueprints or drawings on waxed linen paper are together in archival storage sleeves.

When she unrolls a set of plans, Romano said, "I feel a pretty direct connection to the people that were here."

Lowin said that yard executives have been talking to community groups as they work on a development plan to build more industrial buildings. "One of the things that always comes up is the fascination with the place," he said.

So the corporation is thinking of restoring an old building, possibly a gatehouse that dates to the 1890s and is now used as the entrance to the city pound for towed cars, as a small visitor center with a few displays and some documents.

"There is potential that we would do guided bus tours at some date in the future," Lowin added.

In the meantime, the corporation is talking to local museums and historical organizations about finding a more appropriate permanent home for the documents. Another possibility is housing them in another old building that would be restored or in a proposed new centralized services building.

While these decisions are pondered, Romano keeps looking for pieces of the Brooklyn Navy Yard's past - both at the yard and elsewhere.

"There's so much out there in people's attics," she said. "I'd love to get my hands on it."

Noteworthy sites at the Navy Yard

1. Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. office and archives

2. Sands Street

gatehouse, which could become a

visitors center

3. Drydock No. 1, a

city landmark

4. The 1838 naval hospital, a city

landmark, where

Confederate prisoners were held during the Civil War

HISTORY OF THE NAVY YARD:

1781: John Jackson and his brothers buy a small portion of the current site and built a shipyard.

1801: The federal

government purchases Jackson's land for $40,000.

1814: Congress allocates funds for construction of the United States' first steam-powered warship, the Fulton Steam Frigate, at the yard.

1838: The Naval Hospital is built. It will house Confederate prisoners

Lots of good pictures. The 'Moishe' building is bursting with potential - every time I pass it, my eyes go right to following its curve. It could be reclad in glass with horizontal accents and it would be beautiful.

Odd, how many huge buildings there are there, but how relatively unknown...

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a bevy of officials broke ground yesterday on the largest expansion program of the Brooklyn Navy Yard since World War II. The project is to bring 401,900 additional square feet of industrial space and a 60,000-square-foot supermarket to a complex that once housed Confederate prisoners of war and launched ships into battle. The project is expected to generate 800 new jobs, and officials said they would seek to channel them to residents of neighboring Fort Greene, Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant and to employ minority- and women-owned contractor companies.

Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Shaun Donovan announced today the selection of Navy Green Joint Venture, a partnership of Dunn Development Corporation and L&M Equity Participants, Ltd, for the redevelopment of the Navy Brig site in Wallabout, Brooklyn. The redevelopment of this 103,000 square foot former prison site will create a unique mixed-use community, consisting of 434 residential units, commercial space, open space and a community facility. To oversee the development of the site’s master plan, design and LEED certification, Navy Green Joint Venture has selected the architectural team of FXFowle Architects, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP and Architecture in Formation. By combining affordable rental and homeownership units with market-rate co-ops, townhouses and supportive housing, the redevelopment of the Brig will result in an unprecedented mixed-income community.

Approximately 77 percent of the residential units will be affordable to families earning between 30 percent and 130 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), which is equivalent to a salary range of $21,250 to $92,170 for a household of four or $14,900 to $64,480 for a single household. The affordable units will be part of Mayor Bloomberg’s ten-year New Housing Marketplace Plan to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing for 500,000 New Yorkers, more than the entire population of Atlanta. The Mayor’s Plan is the largest municipal affordable housing initiative in the nation’s history.

“The City has selected a redevelopment proposal that will transform the Brig site into a vibrant mixed-use and mixed-income community and will provide affordable and supportive housing, as well as much needed community and open spaces to the Wallabout neighborhood,” said HPD Commissioner Shaun Donovan. “By developing mixed communities through the Mayor’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, the City is preserving the diversity and affordability of our neighborhoods, which is critical to our city’s economic future. This development proposal would not have been possible without the insight and support of the Wallabout residents and their elected officials.”Out of the 434 residential units:

203 units will be for homeownership, of which 179 will be co-op apartments and 24 will be townhouse units:

-75 percent of the co-op units will be affordable to households earning up to 130 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $92,170 for households of four or $64,480 for single households. The remaining co-op units will be sold at market-rate.

-20 percent of the townhouses will be affordable to households earning up to 130 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $92,170 for households of four or $64,480 for single households. The remaining townhouse units will be sold at market-rate.

231 units will be rentals ranging in affordability as follows:

-97 rental units will be for supportive housing affordable to individuals earning up 60 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $29,760.

-67 rental units will be affordable to households earning up to 60 percent of AMI, which is equivalent $42,540 for households of four or $29,760 for single households.

-30 rental units will be affordable to households earning up to 80 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $56,700 for households of four or $39,700 for single households.

-The remaining 37 rentals, which will be part of the townhouses, will be market-rate.

The site’s community facility will include a visual arts center and a day care center. It is anticipated that a café, restaurant and/or an environmentally-friendly dry cleaner will occupy the site’s commercial space.

HPD hosted an International Design Workshop in December 2003 to create a vision for the redevelopment of the site. Community residents, local business and community-based organization leaders, elected officials, and staff from HPD and other City agencies participated. The three-day workshop resulted in a set of planning principles, a tentative development program, and a conceptual site plan. Following the workshop, HPD established a 14-member community task force to help the City refine the site plan and continue the dialogue with area residents, community representatives and elected officials. The task force met five times and its members approved the Request for Proposals (RFP). The task force played a critical role in the selection of the development team.

“Thanks to the creativity and hard work of HPD and the community task force, the mixed-use development of the Brig site will be contributing to the vitality of this growing area of Brooklyn,” said Borough President Marty Markowitz. “I have been proud to help make the site’s affordable-housing component a reality, which will help preserve the ethnic and economic diversity that makes us strong. When it comes to adding more affordable housing, Brooklyn says, ‘Brig it on!’”

“At the outset, I want to thank Commissioner Donovan and the community task force for the dedication of their time and talent to this wonderful project which represents an excellent example of high-quality sustainable design, community planning and affordable housing,” said Council Member Letitia James.

As a pilot for New York City’s Design and Construction Excellence Initiative, this project will serve as an outstanding example of high-quality, sustainable design and construction that is financially feasible and responsive to the community. All buildings in the project will achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. LEED is a green building rating system, developed by the US Green Building Council that provides a list of standards for environmentally-sustainable construction. The redevelopment proposals were reviewed by HPD with input from the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC). The Navy Green team proposed the most comprehensive plan that emphasized design excellence while including the greatest number of affordable units. The proposal received the support of the community task force, community groups and local electeds.

"HPD is to be congratulated for once again demonstrating that the City's Design and Construction Excellence Program can bring high-quality design and construction to the successful and affordable development of New York City neighborhoods. FXFOWLE, Curtis and Ginsburg, and Architecture in Formation are design leaders and will develop a thoughtful, sustainable housing environment for the Wallabout community," said DDC Commissioner David Burney.

The 103,000 square foot site is bounded by Flushing Avenue to the north, Park Avenue to the south, Clermont Avenue to the east, and Vanderbilt Avenue to the west. The Brig was built in the early 1940s and served as a naval prison. After the closing of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1966, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service used the Brig as a detention center until 1984 when, faced with severe overcrowding in its prisons, New York City sought ownership of the prison for its lower risk prisoners. The Brig served as a minimum-security prison until it was closed in December 1994. The last occupants of the Brig were volunteer workers involved in the post-September 11th cleanup effort. HPD completed demolition of the Brig building and site clearance in August 2005. Construction is anticipated to begin in the late spring or early summer of 2008.

BROOKLYN, NY-B&H Photo-Video has a huge expansion plan in the works. The retailer of imaging products has plans to build more than double its space with the construction of a green facility that will be between 400,000 sf and 600,000 sf.

The company is currently located in a 160,000-sf building in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, and plans to construct the new multi-level location nearby. Construction for the $50-million project is slated to begin this summer and finish by 2009. The new facility is needed to handle B&H’s growing business. “The new green distribution building will enable the company to expand its work force and better serve its customers in the metropolitan area and around the world,” says Herschel Jacobowitz, CIO of B&H.

Once construction is complete, the building will apply for Silver LEED certification. The silver certification is now a requirement for any new buildings being built at the Navy Yards, a movement that is due in part to the mayor’s greener New York plan called PlaNYC.

The Navy Yard has housed B&H, which is one of the park’s largest tenants, for more than 10 years. “For more than 30 years, B&H has provided jobs for hard working New Yorkers and over that time, grown to become not just a New York success story, but an industry leader,” says Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in a statement. “Their expansion is proof that our five borough economic development strategy is working and creating jobs and it’s a testament to the critical role that the Brooklyn Navy Yard plays in providing space to meet this demand in a way that is consistent with the green building goals we laid out in PlaNYC.”

The up to 600,000-sf facility is expected to add 300 employees to the 160 that already work for the company at the Navy Yard location. “They are a terrific local employer that will make every effort to fill these new jobs with Brooklyn residents, particularly those living in the communities surrounding the Navy Yard,” says Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yards Development Corp. “The B&H expansion, when combined with expansions previously announced, will result in over one million sf of new industrial space constructed in the Navy Yard over the next three years creating over 1,500 new jobs.”

The Navy Yards are 99% occupied, and plans are in place to expand the 300-acre, 40-rental-building site. The expansion will produce more than 400,000 sf of additional rental space and includes a 60,000-sf supermarket on the edge of the site. Earlier this year, Steiner Studios announced its plans to build a 289,000-sf expansion facility. It is said the studio’s new site will create 550 jobs. With the expansion plans of Steiner and B&H, and the Navy Yards planned growth this industrial area of Brooklyn will add more than one million sf of space to the area in the next three years.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard will become home to a historic center as part of its expansion and redevelopment, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn said yesterday. The center, scheduled to open in early 2010 in the Marine Corps commandant’s residence, is to use multimedia exhibits, including oral history projects, to tell the story of the Navy Yard and provide meeting space and offices for the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. The City Council has promised $10 million of the $15 million needed to renovate and expand the building, which was erected in 1857.

A plan to tear down 10 historic houses at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and replace them with a supermarket has been delayed indefinitely thanks to a decision by federal officials to review whether the dilapidated 150-year-old mansions can be saved.

“There is absolutely no way we can give any sort of end date at all … there is no mandated time limit,” said Kristin Leahy, the manager of the National Guard Bureau Cultural Resources Program, which is investigating the mansions’ historical integrity — to the frustration of those eager to see the run-down buildings torn down.

Leahy said the earliest that she could hold a meeting with the city, area residents and preservationists is March. And that meeting would be just the first of a series.

Admirals Row, which overlooks Flushing Avenue near Navy Street, sits on six acres of federally owned land in the otherwise city-controlled Navy Yard.

The National Guard wants to sell the land, and according to local law, must give the city first dibs. But because of the houses’ historic significance, the Guard must also go through an arduous public comment and historic review process.

“I’m disappointed,” said Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene), a proponent of the supermarket proposal.

“We’re trying to expedite the process,” added James. “[And] we’ve been in touch with some federal elected officials [to help do that].”

The Navy Yard’s proposal is popular in the surrounding community, particularly among residents of the Farragut, Ingersoll and Whitman public housing projects, who have little access to fresh produce.

“Saving historic homes may be significant to some people, but to the people who live in a neighborhood that doesn’t have easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables, it is of much less importance,” Ed Brown, the president of the Ingersoll Tenants Association, recently said in a letter to The Brooklyn Paper.

Even so, neighboring and city preservationists argue that the houses should be rehabilitated, and are pleased that the federal government is taking its responsibilities seriously.

“I think they’ve handled themselves well,” said Scott Witter, a Clinton Hill artist and one of the most outspoken opponents of the city’s plans.

Simeon Bankoff, another opponent of the city’s plan and the executive director of the Historic Districts Council, agreed, saying that the National Guard’s deliberate approach has convinced him that there would not be “a rush to judgment.”.

To bolster their case that the 150-year-old houses on Admirals Row should be restored, preservationists have been showing off Lucy Sikes’s renderings of what they may have once looked like. Today, the houses are a tumbledown mess, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard wants to finish the job and put up a supermarket.